the.com/stem
the plant's plumbing, scaffolding, and sun-worshipping spine all bolted into one green tower
means The slender main stalk of a plant that holds it upright and channels water and nutrients between roots and leaves — or, more broadly, the central supporting shaft of any object.
from From Old English 'stemn' or 'stefn,' meaning the trunk of a tree or the stem of a plant, and tied up with the prow or 'stem' of a ship. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic root (compare Dutch 'stam' and German 'Stamm,' trunk) and is thought to share deep ancestry with words for 'to stand' — fitting for the part that does the standing. The verb 'to stem' meaning 'to stop or hold back' (as in 'stem the tide') is a separate cousin, from Old Norse 'stemma,' to dam up.
- living straw
- Pulls water up via xylem, no pump required
- capillary force
- Water climbs against gravity through microscopic tubes
- celery trick
- Stems wick dye and turn classroom flowers blue
- sugar highway
- Phloem ships food downward while xylem hauls up
- hidden trees
- A tree's entire trunk is one giant stem
stem cell research — used to treat leukemia, spinal cord injuries, and develop regenerative medicine since 1998
hematopoietic stem cells — blood-forming cells in bone marrow that produce 200 billion red blood cells daily
induced pluripotent stem cells — adult cells reprogrammed to embryonic state by shinya yamanaka, won 2012 nobel prize